Tour pt 5 - Newcastle, the end.

THE GREAT NORTHERN // 9 JUNE

Yae!Tiger, Briscoe + Hopes

Brooke from Yae!Tiger organised this show and it was sort of the quid pro quo to the Wollongong gig (aka shit-stinking ordeal they had to drive 4 hrs down from Newcastle for). We had booked hostel beds for the night but Brooke and Shane insisted we stay at their place, come early for a barbeque and eat all the rest of their food at 2am. We're lucky they don't understand latin, or that they are excellent people. 

Brooke and Shane also have a 2 piece side project called The Si Claros which you should check out. They've just pressed their debut 7". I heard it at their place on this<<< 

Hopes were up first and I really dug it. A few people were scrunching up their noses but it was a young band and they were really going for something - it was a chunk of noise rock with some edgy vocal ideas and some killer fuzzed-out guitar hooks that were making me think of My Bloody Valentine. A little way off MBV but at least they were going for something outside the ambit of inbred, edgeless indie music.     

Luke Davison of Preachers fame was filling in for Ross on the drums. We had one rehearsal with him, one short rehearsal and he was all over it. He must really like Briscoe, like heaps more than the Preachers. 

The gig felt very good, a bit loose but in the best possible way. It was timely cos the one/two punch of Wollongong and the Lansdowne had me ready to do something i may have regretted, like sell all my instruments and get a Sydney mortgage.

Yae!Tiger were terrific again. Set opener Sleepworking is my fave at the moment I think. We drew the curtain on the tour and consummated our bandlove by jumping up with them and singing the ecstatic outro to the Gordon Shumway Experiment. Flaming Lips eat your hearts out. 

Thanks to everyone who came to a show, we really appreciate it - not just saying that. Next time we see you it'll be with an album for sale at the door.

Tour pt 4 - The Lansdowne.

THE LANSDOWNE // 24 MAY

Briscoe, Tales In Space, Capitol + The FireTree

A few of us had been sick all week and between soundcheck and the gig, I lost my voice.

Byron duo the FireTree had been shoehorned into the bill by the venue the day before and they Matt Corbied their way through some Angus and Julia Stone territory. They were sweet but played too early to make an impact. 

Capitol came next and didn't play my favourite Capitol song Velveteen. I was very cross, but they did Let You Down and their cover of Rebel Yell so I forgave them. 

LEEEEEEEEEEE!

Capitol hold a special place in our hearts because they were almost the lone witnesses of our first ever gig. Before Briscoe had even thought about gigging Yak, Dee, Dave, Kate and I were playing a Dusker show (the other band we are all in) in Katoomba with Capitol and a band from the mountains. The mountains band pulled out at the last minute and early evening contentment with a 2 band bill gave way to 11pm drunken insistence on a third - the outrageously under-prepared and drummerless virgin Briscoe. 

The pub was changing owners the following week and the bar staff apparently didn't care for the incoming administration enough to bother with tedious things like commerce. They emptied three bottles of tequila into us for free. Then we played. For an hour maybe... we don't even have that much material now that we've had a rehearsal, I shudder to think what the hell we were playing back then. This guy (left), Lee was his name, kept assuring me afterwards that we were artists, but I think I overheard him later assuring a chip in the table laminate that it was an artist so, we're pretty much artists. 

In the end both Lee and Capitol were just as trolleyed as us so the reality of the gig died that night along with most of our brain cells.

It was around the middle of Capitol's set this time around that I realised my voice was disappearing. 

Luke, Pieman and Bambi (TiS)

Tales In Space were next, an electro-pop rockin 3 piece fronted by Luke Bertoz who mixed the Briscoe record. Jesus they were good. They have been around for a while but I don't think I'm being overly biased when I say they have what it takes to make it, if that means anything whatsoever. For a small electro outfit they've struck the perfect balance between live playing and backing track. They are slick, busy and engaging on stage and the songs (especially their new ones) are fucking undeniable. 

We got on stage and while the others tuned up I strummed the first verse of the first song desperately to myself, trying in vain to squeeze out something resembling the melody. I had nothing. I was shitting myself. Jacob started the song, I started to sing, the sound guy started to turn down my mic. It felt like my voice was sandpaper being dragged up past my larynx, I definitely did some permanent damage but apparently this is what rock n roll is made of yes? Yak and Dee and Kate stepped up the backing vocals and Yak even covered a few guitar parts that he could see I was gonna be too preoccupied to bother with.

Man it sucked but I'm glad it happened - I've always feared this kind of thing but at least I know what to expect now - I know my kick-arse band will fill the gaps, I know that the people in the front will still clap despite their true feelings, and I know that most people will be listening only enough to know that we started and we finished.

"Good set man"
"Ha, thanks that's kind of you"
"Whoa are you losing your voice?" 

READ PART 5 HERE

Tour pt 3 - The Gong.

THE PATCH // 18 MAY

Paisley Park, Briscoe + Yae!Tiger

Owen from Y!T - Simply The Best

Raining. Dee and I got there first and we walked through a rowdy, harshly lit front bar to the band room at the back. It looked pretty decent - nice sized stage, good PA, lighting rig, dance floor, decent. THIS IS NOT WHERE YOU ARE PLAYING. Back out to the beige-tastic front bar where we were actually playing, we'd missed the stripping waitresses by five minutes - they'd left ripples of burbling misogyny in their wake though. The stage was dismal: shallow and wide with twin flat-screen gargoyles perched above it. Yae!Tiger politely disguised their horror as they arrived and to their credit, were very civil to me. I felt bad.

The Rugby League was switched off, most of the clientele vacated the premises and Y!T proceeded to rock what was left of the house. They were once a 6+ piece but they took a break and slimmed down to 4 and it really is a helluva rebirth. The songs, which were always great, are so much bolder and clearer as a four piece. It's pop that rarely goes where you expect it to, but still gets its hooks into you. Totally creative and engrossing. 

Half of Briscoe arrived just before we were set to go on, and the first words we said to each other were "one, two, three, four" then I proceeded to offend one of the only punters who had hung around in response to a heckle I may have misheard. It had been a rough week and this iced the cake. Context aside I think it was one of our tightest sets. Surprisingly, a group of people who had been drinking with their backs to us turned around when we finished and shouted "change yer name and play another set!" I'll be quoting that in the next press release for sure.

Locals Paisley Park came on after us for their maiden show and my heart broke for them as the sound guy tried without urgency or success to tame the feedback that was dominating their first few songs. His solution in the end was to turn off the singer's microphone and to rest on the laurels of that nobel-worthy decision for the next two songs. It. Sucked.

READ PART 4 HERE

Brooke and Cat (Y!T) getting psyched

Tour pt 2 - Canberra.

THE PHOENIX // 12 MAY

Briscoe, Waterford + Lavers

In contrast, Canberra was loud, small and sweaty. The place was heaving because it was nothing degrees outside and Groovin the Moo was on the following day so people arrived a day early to gee up and take all of the accommodation. This meant the gig would be a rager but we'd be homeless afterwards. Lucky we found a friend living in Palmerston with 27 couches in her otherwise modest house.

Lavers played first, in 2-piece double acoustic mode. Dom the singer is mega likeable on stage and their songs are solid but they were fighting against a rising tide of punters trying to find somewhere to settle and continue their conversations from outside. This is where a drumkit comes in handy. Dee and I were loving on Waterford's album 'Say OK' on the way down and their set cemented these songs in our minds, this one especially. 

<<<

They are literate, classy songwriters, breezy performers and such nice guys. I have a ton of time for them.

For us, squeezing on to the Phoenix stage means there's basically 6 layers of denim keeping the gig from becoming a group sex show, but it is one of my favourite places to play just because you feel like anything goes. Get up, get loose, get loud in a very confined space, sweat, swear, bump into shit... it's a gig with absolutely no pretence and a venue that actually supports original music and treats you better than you probably deserve. 

Lots of people thought that my Jacob t-shirt was actually Elliott Smith...

Bev (Ranger Spacey's drummer, right) who was down with his much better half Kat, got painted up and started a mosh during Seven of You. I appreciated it, even if the people he was jumping on didn't. Never change Bevis!

READ PART 3 HERE

Tour pt 1 - FBi Social.

The Day Job tour was interesting. I think saying we were "on" tour might be a bit misleading. More like we were "beside" tour, dipping in at showtime then immediately out again and back to reality for another seven arduous days. It was a sadistic cosmic coincidence that everyone in the band happened to be going through their own personal upheavals during this time. Mostly the shows felt like breaks of barely discernible reception in some heavy static. In this way it was tough to get the sense of being on tour as opposed to playing some unrelated gigs here and there but the one thing I can say is that a lot of learning happened.

FBi SOCIAL // 4 MAY
Briscoe, Bloods, Mushu + Lily So & Co

Despite being under-prepared for it, the FBi Social show was a happy success. It was our first headline show so I had a promoter's sweat on for most of the night, but plenty of people came and all the bands nailed it.

Lily So has a big band but still manages to create plenty of space around her songs with great restraint and really thoughtful arrangements. They played a beautiful set.

It was the first time I had seen Bloods and they were a lot of fun - catchy as hell and rocking the house through a Peavey practice amp, this is cool.

And Mushu are just one of those bands that I take friends to see and without fail they'll ask "why haven't these guys made it yet?" It was maybe the best Mushu set I've ever seen, and I've seen them roughly billions of times.

This felt like our most important show and we were appropriately jittery and excited, in a "yes that's her hand on my crotch: game on" kind of way but we kept our cool and walked out of there with big smiles and our gig bags slung strategically over our groinal regions.

Big ups to Dan Nash on the sound desk and Kimb who books the room - what a couple of legends.

READ PART 2 HERE

Photos by Kate Farquharson - http://www.facebook.com/katefarquharsonphotographer



         

Day Job Tour almost over, actual day job remains interminable.

Well the tour is almost done and the post-tour empty and broken feeling is kicking in. Maybe i'll post about the shows in greater depth in the next few days but for now I'll just say come to the Great Northern in Newcastle this Saturday night for the last show... the weather's gonna be nice, the hostel beds are cheap and the bands (Yae!Tiger, Hopes and Briscoe) are, in my opinion, excellent.

I took this video on my telephone of Yae!Tiger (who are great) at our Wollongong show (which was effing horrible). Because I thought I'd be clever and get a non-iPhone phone, the sound does not do them justice... it is a great song though. Go here to hear a version that doesn't sound like a Thurston Moore noise rock excursion. 

Oh yeah, the clip.

Written, directed, shot and edited by Briscoe.
Starring: Dee Dee and Benjamin Pask, Ana Munro, Denise Rachel Gaberman, Bart and Matthew Denaro